Dangerous And Unnecessary Culture: Bombay High Court Calls Out Police Over Copy Pasting Statements Of Witnesses

The Bombay High Court has called out the "dangerous" and "unnecessary" culture of copy pasting of statements of witnesses by Police.

The Court was considering an Application filed for quashing FIR registered for the offence punishable under Sections- 306, 352, 294, 504, 506 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code.

The division bench of Justice Vibha Kankanwadi and Justice Sanjay A. Deshmukh observed, ".....we have noticed that even in serious offence, the investigating officer who had recorded the statements of the witnesses under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, has literally made copy-paste of the statements. Even the paragraphs start with the same words and end with the same words. The culture of copy-paste statements is dangerous and may, in certain cases unnecessarily, give advantage to the accused persons. In such circumstances, the seriousness of the genuine case may get vanished."

The Applicant was represented by Advocate H.P. Randhir while the Respondent was represented by Additional Public Prosecutor N.R. Dayama.

The Court allowed the withdrawal of the Application as requested. However, it called out the copy-pasting of the statements in the charge-sheet.

"Two witnesses cannot give statement in identical fashion. The only change is as per the relationship of the witness either with the deceased or the informant. We have noticed this in many cases, including the cases under Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code. We may also wonder, as to whether really those witnesses are called by the police for statement under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure or not, but their statements would appear in the charge-sheet," the Court observed.

Stressing on how frequently it is coming across such cases, the court took suo moto cognizance of the issue.

".....we are coming across with such copy-paste statements in serious offence like Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, it is then high time to take cognizance of the issue suo moto and to consider, as to what are those short comings or difficulties for the investigating officer/officers when they record such copy-paste statements," the Court observed.

It pointed out that when even in such serious matters if this copy-paste method is adopted, then it is not a good indication for the criminal justice system and therefore, we are taking cognizance and want the State to come out with specific guidelines to the investigating officers and also in respect of, how to record the statements.

The Application was accordingly dismissed as withdrawn.

Cause Title: Amol Samadhan Nikam vs. Amol Samadhan Nikam (2025:BHC-AUG:13097-DB)

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